Adobe Illustrator: What you need to know, Part 1

Arrows heads and tails without using the triangle tool

Illustrator has an arrow feature in the Stroke palette. Clicking on the left or right arrow you can determine the type of arrowhead or tail you wish to have on your line.

Once the arrowhead is chosen, you can decide if the scale of the arrowhead works and is not to big.

If you need to adjust the scale of the arrowhead to the line, the percentage scale below the arrowhead can be adjusted.

You can also adjust whether the arrowhead stays within the line length or goes beyond with the Align tool just below the Scale.

Blend tool does not make a smoothie 

But it does allow you to create multiples of an object, like grid lines, marks on charts, etc.

Start by creating a pair of objects, I'll create a graph for demo. So I made one vertical line and copy/pasted that duplicate to the right of the original. Like so.

The icon shown is the Blend tool.

Double click on the Blend tool and the Blend tool options box will open. Choose Specified Steps in the Spacing drop down.

In the field to the right, choose how many duplicates of the line you wish, I have chosen 5. Make sure the Orientation is selected as shown above. Click Ok.

Now we have 7 lines, evenly spaced apart. If you want to change that number, double-click on the Blend tool again and change the number of specified steps.

Now I have 10 lines.


To learn what other things you can do with the Blend tool, look at this tutorial https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/blending-objects.html

Transform Tool Palette

Did you know that there are options for the Transform tool? If it is not already in your palette options to the right, you can find it under Windows > Transform. Select it and an option dialogue box will appear.

At the bottom you will note the 3 boxes, if unchecked you'll need to check the Scale Strokes & Effects. Below is an example of what this selection does.

You can see from the example that when the selection is not checked and objects are transformed the stroke and effects that are attributed to the shape do not expand or contract with the transformation. But when the selection is checked, the stroke and effects modify based on the transformation.

Transparency Palette

Just like Photoshop, you have the option to manipulate the opacity and effects to the objects using the Transparency Palette. If it is not already in your palette options to the right, you can find it under Windows > Transparency. 

You can see the Opacity field, and the options you have clicking on the left drop down.

Remember these applications only apply themselves to the objects, not the layer.

Direct Selection Tool

I fondly name this the white arrow, maybe because the icon.

This arrow allows you to manipulate every object in Illustrator, by allowing you to select and move individual nodes. (blue square)

How to slice a pie

Creating our own charts and graphs does not pose to much of a problem. But pie charts are another problem. Illustrator has kindly provided us with a Pie Graph tool.

If you don't see it in the tool set, look under the Column Graph tool.

Once selected click and drag out an area on the art board, once released a pie chart will appear along with a table.

Illustrator automatically assigns the first slice as 1.00, you can change that in the grey field. You continue to add different slices to the pie graph going across to the next cell.

Once you have added all of your percentages, click on the check mark icon in the upper right corner of the table.

The slices of the pie graph are revealed. If you need to have a color graph, you'll need to use the Direct Selection tool to select the pieces of the graph and choose a color in the Swatches or Color palette.

Once you are done with the table, you can close it.

Art Board + and -

You can change the size of your Artboard or even add more of them, but clicking on the Artboard tool.

This will change the tool set in the bar at the top and will change the desktop, you'll be in the artboard space.

You'll notice the bar at the top to the right has fields for width and height, you can change the size manually there, or you can just pull the sides or corners of the artboard to change the size. If you wish to add another artboard, there is an icon of a turned up page on the artboard menu that when clicked will give you another artboard attached to your cursor. Find a place on the desktop and click to release it to the desktop.

Now I have 2 artboards and they are labeled as such in the upper left corners.